Varney the Vampire eBook

“That she would advise us honourably,”
said Henry, “and that we should feel every disposition
in the world to defer to her wishes our proposition,
is not to be doubted; but little shall be done without
her counsel and sanction. Let us now proceed
homeward, for I am most anxious to ascertain how it
came about that she and Sir Francis Varney were together
in that summer-house at so strange an hour.”

They all three walked together towards the house,
conversing in a similar strain as they went.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE CONSULTATION.—­THE DUEL AND ITS RESULTS.

[Illustration]

Independent of this interview which Flora had had
with the much dreaded Sir Francis Varney, the circumstances
in which she and all who were dear to her, happened
at that moment to be placed, certainly required an
amount of consideration, which could not be too soon
bestowed.

By a combination of disagreeables, everything that
could possibly occur to disturb the peace of the family
seemed to have taken place at once; like Macbeth’s,
their troubles had truly come in battalions, and now
that the serenity of their domestic position was destroyed,
minor evils and annoyances which that very serenity
had enabled them to hold at arm’s-length became
gigantic, and added much to their distress.

The small income, which, when all was happiness, health
and peace, was made to constitute a comfortable household,
was now totally inadequate to do so—­the
power to economise and to make the most of a little,
had flown along with that contentedness of spirit
which the harmony of circumstances alone could produce.

It was not to be supposed that poor Mrs. Bannerworth
could now, as she had formerly done, when her mind
was free from anxiety, attend to those domestic matters
which make up the comforts of a family—­distracted
at the situation of her daughter, and bewildered by
the rapid succession of troublesome events which so
short a period of time had given birth to, she fell
into an inert state of mind as different as anything
could possibly be, from her former active existence.

It has likewise been seen how the very domestics fled
from Bannerworth Hall in dismay, rather than remain
beneath the same roof with a family believed to be
subject to the visitations of so awful a being as a
vampyre.

Among the class who occupy positions of servitude,
certainly there might have been found some, who, with
feelings and understandings above such considerations,
would have clung sympathetically to that family in
distress, which they had known under a happier aspect;
but it had not been the good fortune of the Bannerworths
to have such as these about them; hence selfishness
had its way, and they were deserted. It was not
likely, then, that strangers would willingly accept
service in a family so situated, without some powerful
impulse in the shape of a higher pecuniary consideration,
as was completely out of the power of the Bannerworths
to offer.